Posted
by
timothyon Sunday June 10, 2012 @11:27PM
from the for-great-justice dept.

ChromeAeonium writes "Shortly after the events in Rothamsted Research in the UK, where a publicly funded trial of wheat genetically engineered to repel aphids was threatened by activists with destruction and required police protection, another publicly funded experiment involving genetically engineered crops faces possible destruction (original in Italian). The trial, which is being conducted by researchers at the University of Tuscia in Italy on cherries, olives, and kiwis genetically engineered to have traits such as fungal disease resistance, started three decades ago. When field research of GE plants was banned in Italy in 2002, the trial received an extension to avoid being declared illegal, but was denied another in 2008, and following a complaint from the Genetic Rights Foundation, now faces destruction on June 12th, despite appeals from scientists. The researchers claim that the destruction is scientifically unjustifiable (only the male kiwis produce transgenic pollen and their flowers are removed) and wish to gather more information from the long running experiment."

Indeed. It is pretty much a lost battle for us convincing the rest of the world. Primary blame goes to the people who made the marketing decision to rename the "Chinese goosebury" to "kiwifruit". This was entirely predictable, had they thought about it.

I remember when I was in the USA and someone asked me if we ate a lot of kiwis in NZ. I was horrified and explained they were a protected species. It took a while for us to understand each other.